Neither Saint nor Sinner
by meandmyinsanity
Summary: So what do you do, when you've managed to not only rip out your own heart but his too? Right, you just walk into his summer house, when he at least expects it and try to get it all back on track while matchmaking little princesses and blackmailing bosses pull the strings, doesn't that sound great? Sequel to Long Live the King, Modern AU, and yeah, second proposal; WHATEVER!;)


**A/N: Okay, so as you can see, I spend some time writing these past few weeks;) After all these really flattering reviews (you really made my day! and my works are now also on JAFF, thank you;) I thought I owed you a sequel;)  
It's a bit different in tone, structure and length, which is one of the reasons it's posted as a sequel and not as a second chapter to Long Live the King another one is, that after having written LLTK (crappy acronym, I know;) I didn't really feel like there was a happy end to it despite my vague note of writing one, so I beat myself up about it and decided to write a _possible_ ending, which is what you get now;) And no I'm not telling you if it's all sunshine and rainbows;) So LLTK is still an independent work but with a possible ending;)  
**

**So if you haven't read Long Live the King, I advise you to do so, because it'll make reading this one a lot easier;)**

**Music was really important for this one, just watch the youtube playlist to Bon Ivers "Skinny Love" and you get a feeling what I went through to write this;) "Skinny Love" is really important in all this and if you know the Birdie version, you know which song is played on the piano later on;) **

**To some of my german readers, who are still reading Bones grow from the middle to both ends: I'M STILL WRITING! DON'T PANIC! The next chapter should be up in a few weeks, it's halfway finished, but this project just took up most of my time and inspiration;) (uh don't know why I didn't write that in german...)**

**So I'm no native speaker, so please forgive me for any mistakes, a friend corrected this, but still... tell me if something is totally off;)**

**Anyway: Disclaimer: Still not owning Pride&Prejudice... honestly I would throw a party if I did, but as it is Jane Austen does and she is dead...**

* * *

**Neither Saint nor Sinner**

There's this saying, this proverb, this phrase people use in love songs, love films, commercials or just every time, they run out of words. "Time heals everything", they say, "every wound, every broken heart... you see, time heals everything, my dear..."

Her parents had told her this_,_ the counsellors at school had phrased it in some psychological terminology but essentially told her the same and dear sweet Jane was no better, when she patted her head and told Lizzie in this motherly sympathetic way, she'd brought to perfection over the years, that all will be well, because "time heals everything, sweetie."

Yeah, even if you were the one to break apart your own heart while simultaneously doing the same thing to _his_ beating organ? And _his_ feelings? And all the while dancing on top of the burning fire his shattered emotional world together with her own tattered one and both of their broken hearts had incinerated?

Is time really able to accomplish such an amount?

But Lizzie just nodded and smiled, because no matter how sweet Jane's temper might be, Lizzie thought, she wasn't really the best person to dump all thisemotional bullshit on, she currently carried around like an old bag of smelly clothing.

And not exactly the right person to tell that she'd slept with William freaking Darcy for the last three months.

Even though she wholeheartedly doubted there was anyone on this whole fucking planet she could talk to about this – apart from the very man, whose heart she'd just shredded to pieces – honestly that would be a fucking great idea.

However she needed to stop cursing. And waking up at night. And staring at his picture, his sincere face when he appeared in the news, or on her internet browser, or on her desk when her co-workers threw her the newspaper right across the keyboard, while she attempted to work - She needed to stop doing a lot of things.

And she tried to, really, she even got so far as to apply for a position at the offices in Moscow and she probably would have gone through with it, if Jane hadn't found the application and listed every single fact about why moving to Russia was the most crackbrained idea her mind ever came up with since she was nine and thought that braiding that pony's tail at the local horse show would secure her sister the first price.

And after asking if she'd suffered some major damage to her brain that time (the most sarcastic remark, Lizzie had heard from Jane in years) she'd gone on and on about the cold weather, the violation of human rights and some other political conditions, she would be confronted with, while Lizzie just nodded and finally relented after Jane pointed out that Skittles were probably hard to get when living in Russia.

Yeah, she was a sucker for everything containing colours and sugar at the same time and Jane knew that.

But even then the ordeal wasn't over and Lizzie, who suffered from an extensive lack of sleep and wanted nothing more than to climb right into bed, awaiting another night of tossing and turning and some minutes of deathlike coma when the exhaustion finally took over, had tuned out Janes voice after she'd given in and was startled when her sister suddenly lifted her chin and forced Lizzie to look into her bright blue eyes.

"What's up with you?", she asked, concerned, but there was hardly a moment where Janes wasn't concerned for her sister's well-being, it was something Lizzie had gotten used to over the years.

"Nothing", she said, even though all these sleepless nights, the crying and the overall exhaustion were clearly visible on her face. "I'm fine."

It was the biggest lie in the history of lies and Lizzie Bennet, self-proclaimed winner in the category of inventing stories, when it came to explaining to her parents, why there was a red spot on her neck, or why the pink, lace-covered dress, her mother so adored, didn't survive the birthday it was bought for, or why her breath smelled like mint when she came home late at night, Lizzie Bennet felt like the uttering of these two syllables was the biggest lie of them all.

"No, you're not", Jane said and furrowed her brow, while staring intently into Lizzies lilac coloured eyes that tried to avert hers.

"I don't want to talk, Jane", Lizzie said and freed her chin from Janes grasp. Her sister sighed.

"Is it because of Johnny?", she asked and stared at Lizzie, while her sister curled up with a red blanket on the couch, knees to her chest, arms clutched tightly around them.

Lizzie snorted. "Johnny Wickham? Hell, no!" She rolled her eyes at the thought of the bleach-blonde surfer guy, she'd met some days ago at a bar together with Jane and Charlie and who had tried to kiss her and gotten a bit to eager with the hands.

"You seemed to like him", Jane said softly while trying to figure out, why her sister was acting so strange lately.

"He was entertaining", Lizzie said. And the complete opposite of _him, _she added in her mind. _God_, it was a miracle that she hadn't started thinking of him in capital letters. But perhaps that was blasphemy.

"He seemed nice", Jane said, desperate to keep the conversation going, but Lizzie just snorted and covered her face with the blanket, successfully managing to hide the whole world behind a red curtain made of wool and some old fabric.

She heard how Jane sighed and then stood up, she felt the shift on the sofa cushions and then Janes hand on her head, patting while muttering the words, which nearly sent Lizzie screaming up in the air.

Yeah, she'd gotten a bit dramatic over the past weeks.

The nights were the worst part.

Since that... incident – she hadn't come up with a title for that evening yet, so it remained "that incident" in her head, since then there were these... dreams... even though she wasn't sure if "dream" was the right word to describe it. It was moreover a feeling of restlessness and anxiety, a feeling of running a hundred miles while trying to catch something, anything and then waking up drenched in sweat, with sheets tangled around her legs and a heart beating at a pace so fast and loud that it droned on and on in her head, only to catch a glimpse of the alarm clock and to realise that what had felt like hours of running and screaming and crying had only been a mere three minutes.

She was a wreck and she knew it.

It had been clear the day she was on the verge of yelling at his face, which was plastered so nicely across the façade of a building right across the British Library, that she'd wanted to shout it all out, the anger and the fear, the hurt and the part, that contained the "I-love-you" and the "I'm-so-fucking-sorry".

Or it had been that day when Jane and Charlie came over for dinner and while both of them sat at the counter, happily engrossed in each others eyes while sipping at their respective glasses of wine, Lizzie had felt the sudden urge to throw the empty bottle directly against the wall. Or in their faces.

Why the hell did they have to be so fucking happy?

Apart from the anger issues there was this hole in her chest and she spent hours in front of the mirror, trying to find the gaping wound in her ribcage, that made it so hard to breathe, but it wasn't there. Flesh and Bones and Skin and Clothing all seemed to cover it and she almost asked Jane if time could also heal imaginary wounds or if she was getting paranoid.

Paranoia was another excellent point, because she was fairly sure that aliens must have abducted her at some point in the last few weeks and done some damage to her brain while examining her, especially to the part, which contained memories, because lately she seemed to suffer from extensive flashbacks, that strangely all seemed to focus on _him_.

It was like a slide show of all the memories she had of _him_ running over and over in her head and if she hadn't been surrounded by people all the time, she might have started banging her head against that wall.

Yeah, there you have your brain damage, Janie.

But seriously, sometimes a severe concussion seemed to be the more preferable option, if it meant that she could escape the image of his eyes staring intently at her, every time she closed hers.

That was the thing that haunted her in the few minutes of sleep she got every night.

His eyes and the hurt in them.

This whole debacle wasn't made any easier by the fact that the whole nation simply seemed to adore _him, _hence the number and magnitude of placards covering the whole city.

And while sitting there on the couch in her apartment, whatcould have been the only William-Darcy-Free-Zone in the whole country, if not for the fact that he'd spent a considerable amount of time here, visible in the way _he_ had arranged the food in her fridge according to expiry date, the freaking stain on the kitchen floor, she just couldn't scrub away or the way her pillows smelled just like _him, _no matter how many times she'd angrily thrown them in the washing machine.

Another reason why sleep was scarce these days.

And so she sat there, eyes closed, the red blanket over her face, trying to _"listen to her body" _as her sister Mary put it. The girl with the serious expression on her face and the disposition to lecture everybody on her expert-knowledge, she'd accumulated in India, was now aspiring to become some kind of Yoga-Guru. On good days Lizzie took it as progress from her former career objective of becoming a nun in some isolated convent in France, on bad days she wasn't sure if Mary wasn't as extreme in her beliefs about eastern religions as she had been about Christianity.

However, she'd closed her eyes and was now trying to find the exact location of that throbbing little hole in her chest (if her eyes failed her, perhaps her soul or some other inner spirit was more successful) in order to put something, anything in it, so it would stop hurting (the blanket was a preferable option).

But to no avail, just exactly when she thought to have detected it somewhere in the left part of her ribcage, disconcertingly it was the same moment _his _blueeyes appeared in her mind, her phone rang.

And it wouldn't stop ringing.

"What is it?", she asked rather grumpily without looking at the caller ID.

"You, my dear, are required", the voice of Ed Gardiner blared through the speaker, not caring about ears, minds and people in general.

"I'm not on for this weekend", Lizzie replied defensively. "Ask Lyds she needs the extra hours."

"I'm not talking about the weekend shifts, Bennet!", her boss cried out indignantly. "You've been asked to do the Princess' Interview!"

"I won't do it", Lizzie said curtly, ignoring the sharp sting in her chest (it was definitely somewhere near her heart (perhaps she was about to get a heart attack – was her arm getting numb? She lifted it, but no, all five fingers were moving).

"Not the time for jokes, Bennet", Ed said dismissively. "The royal family has retired to Pemberley for the summer, you are invited to stay there for a week, beginning this Monday. Am I making myself clear?"

"Ed, I don't do the gossip parts, I studied politics for Fudges' sake! Ask Lyds or Fanny to do that, they're all drooling over _him_."

"This country is partly ruled by that family, Bennet, I think that's political enough for you."

"Ed..." She said warily, but her boss, who underwent each day the radical transformation from a loving, caring husband and father of four children in the morning, to the cynical ass of a supervisor, she was now talking to, at work, back to the guy, who invented bedtime-stories for his offspring in the evening.

"No complaints there, Bennet, you get the whole "all inclusive thing" at a fancy mansion at the coast together with some of the most important people in this country and all you have to do is to ask some questions to dear sweet Georgiana and write a report afterwards. You're able to write, Bennet, aren't you?"

"They teach that in primary school, Ed", she huffed.

"Good to know you attended at least one school." She snorted. "However, what we need is a nice little insight into the inner workings of Princess Georgianas mind, you think you can do that? And remember, our readers want to read pleasant things. Pleasant things, Bennet! Dreams of saving the world, her first crush or the whiny bit about missing her daddy, understood? No corpses, no deep dark secrets, no questions about whether or not monarchy is still appropriate, do you comprehend, Bennet? No controversial questions! No philosophical dilemma! We want a nice, little princess story with a teddy bear and a crown if you so please, oh and try to find out something about that eligible brother of hers. He seems to have captured most women's hearts these days... wanna know why..."

"Emma's still obsessed with him?", Lizzie asked nonchalantly, thinking about Ed's teenage daughter.

"She has covered most of her room with pictures of him", Ed growled. "I'd never thought I'd miss her One-Direction obsession, but honestly, Bennet, these guys were at least her age. The king is a whole decade older than her!"

"Weirder things have happened", Lizzie remarked and stifled a laugh.

"Oh, don't let me think about it!", her boss exclaimed. "Maddy says it's just a phase, but what if it's not and she ends up with some guy twice her age because of some weird daddy issue?"

"That wouldn't surprise me, Ed, considering you're the father."

"Always so full of compliments, Bennet", Ed remarked dryly. "So it's settled then, 9 AM Monday morning, you'll be there, understood?"

"Don't know why I repeat myself all the time, Ed. I'm. Not. Going. To. Do. This." She emphasized each word hoping that it would finally get through to him.

"And I don't know why I keep discussing this with you, Bennet. No matter what kind of problem you have with the royal family or what kind of moral concept prevents you from enjoying a free week at the coast: You. Are. Going. Period."

"Did you just say "period", Ed?", Lizzie interjected. "That's so sweet!"

"Don't even try it, Bennet. Or do you want to do it the nasty way?"

"Uh nasty!", Lizzie exclaimed. "Do I need to call Maddy? Because both of us know that you can't fire me, unless you want the Politics department to go to hell."

"It's a preferable option", Ed muttered. "But no, no need to call my better half, because at the moment I'm the one in the possession of these really interesting pictures from the last company party AND your mom's phone number!"

"You're bluffing", Lizzie said disbelievingly while staring a bit miserably at the blanket she'd thrown away in a moment of anger (her body did some really strange things whenever _he_ was mentioned).

He chuckled. "Am I?", he asked. "These hats are really cute, Bennet, didn't know you had a soft spot for them..."

"Ed!", she exclaimed horrified while the sudden realisation dawned on her. "I can't do that, okay?"

"Oh and whose hands are these? Tell me, Bennet, who was allowed to touch your precious-"

"Ed! I. Can't! What will he think of me?"

"I don't care about your escapades, honey, as these nice little pictures so accurately show, I want you ready Monday morning."

"I can't", she whispered panic-fuelled.

"Then you shouldn't have had so much to drink at that party, sweety."

"Still can't", she murmured and bit her lip. She didn't even want to imagine the look on _his_ face when she just marched into _his_ sanctuary like she owned the place. Breaking apart hearts was one thing, rubbing it in was another completely.

"0-1-6-7-6-"

"Oh No! No! No!", she screamed. "You can't do that, Ed! Please, please don't!" The thought of her mother seeing _those _pictures was _terrifying_ to say the least.

She remembered the night pretty clearly, not because she had been sober enough to actually have some kind of recollection about it, but moreover because it must have resulted in a rather embarrassing phone call to _him. _And the fact that let her chest ache (she still wasn't entirely convinced it was her heart, that was aching so much, honestly it was an organ, how could it figuratively hurt so much?) was that _he_ actually came over in the dead of night. She remembered _his_ grin the next morning while she hung over the toilet, literally spitting out whatever was left of her soul, and _his_ refusal to tell her the exact wording of that drunk dial.

What a smug bastard.

"Oh, so we have a deal!", Ed cried out and she was pretty sure, she heard him clapping his hands in excitement.

"Whatever", she murmured defeated, not sure if meeting _him_ in _his_ home was the better option. "I hate you."

"No, you love me", Ed objected. "Are you coming over for dinner tomorrow? Maddy's making her special Bolognese sauce and Emma promised to be home."

"Do you really think I want to see your face right now?", she questioned and, lacking her blanket, buried her face in the yellow sofa cushions.

"It's a handsome face, Bennet. I'll tell her to cook twice as much, you look like you haven't eaten properly for weeks, young lady. I know that the vampire look is "in", as Emma puts it, but you're rather looking like a zombie right now."

"Always so charming, Ed", Lizzie murmured.

"You're welcome, sweetie. See you tomorrow."

"Bye", she muttered and shut her phone. Perhaps a concussion was really the only alternative.

* * *

Monday morning, Lizzie Bennet found herself in front of a gate.

It was a nice gate to be sure, all solid and ancient, with wrought iron adornments and golden painted tops. It was nonetheless a gate and she stood in front of it, her bag in hand, a big sun hat on her head and equally large sun glasses protecting her eyes from the blinding sun.

Yeah she was trying to remain undiscovered as long as possible and felt like the typical paparazzi-hunted starlet at some airport.

She tried not to let the guilt take over, because the longer she stood there, watching _his_ gate, the more she was convinced it was a bad idea.

A very bad idea.

One of the security guys attempted to check her, but she dismissed him with a wave of her hand and continued to stare at the gate, still debating whether or not losing her job, offending Ed and letting her mother see _those_ pictures was the better option.

_And there's still this concussion..._

The security guy, looking quite dumbfounded, made another attempt at a "check-in" and Lizzie, knowing there would be no going back once she'd entered, dismissed him with another curt gesture.

"Not yet", she said distractedly, her brows knitted together under the black Jackie-O-glasses.

What should she say to _him_, when she saw _him_? Just smile, talk pleasantly? Ignore _him_ and try to get this freaking interview with _his_ sister done as soon as possible? Perhaps Ed wouldn't know if she cut her vacation short and fled to some foreign place? Possible, especially considering that exile was not out of the question after this week.

"Miss Bennet...", the guy approached her again, but she stopped with her hand stretched out and a light "Tsk". The poor man was now completely confused and retreated back to his colleague with the shot gun over is shoulder, watching the strange lady in the yellow sun dress and the big hat and glasses from a safe distance.

Lizzie looked up and down the gate, trying to find the inscription, that would indicate if this was the well known route to hell, but she only found some vine branches and not the request to abandon all hope before entering.

_Perhaps this was after all just Purgatory..._

* * *

Truth be told, she hadn't expected any of this to happen.

Firstly, Pemberley:

_He_'d always talked about the house at the beach, about _his_ sanctuary, about how cosy and private and familial the atmosphere was, so she had (by _his_ standards) expected something akin to a mansion, or knowing _him_, some manor house, but this... this beat _everything_, because it was a fucking _palace_.

And while trying to figure out how many storeys this... _thing_... had (it was so big that she had to crane her neck and squint her eyes to make something out) some kind of hurricane caught her blindsided.

Which brings up part 2 of "The Unexpected occurrences at Pemberley Palace" (because a palace it was):

Georgiana Darcy. The girl described by thousand of newspapers, acquaintances and some immediate family (including her own brother) as "painfully shy" and "withdrawn" was a whirlwind in her own right and also the energetic hurricane that nearly knocked her out when standing in front of this... building.

"Lizzie Bennet!", the blonde girl screamed excitedly and jumped up and down like a freaking rubber ball while Lizzie tried to regain her sense of balance. Granted, an adorable rubber ball in her white gown with the long blonde curls and big blue eyes, but a rubber ball nonetheless and she soon felt kind of dizzy while she tried to keep track of the running and jumping and bouncing thirteen-year-old.

"I'm sooooo happy you are here", the girl exclaimed after extracting the promise from a clearly overwhelmed Lizzie to call her Georgie ("Really, it's soooo strange to hear people calling me Georgiana! I always think they are talking to my great-aunt! And Wills says that...")

Yeah... That brings up the next in the line of the Unexpected: Georgianas favourite topic: Her godsend of a brother. Or otherwise known as "Wills".

She didn't seem to be able to stop talking about him, every second sentence begun with a "Wills said" and "Wills thinks" and "Wills did" and she seemed to worship every move he made, which Lizzie thought, was rather sweet.

Dissuading her from her topic of choice was rather hard, because she barely stopped talking at all while showing her to the guest room (no footmen there, only some highly suspiciously looking security guys) and Lizzie wondered if this was her usual way to handle journalists by not letting them ask any questions in the first place. So she let her talk even though it was about _him;_ it was unsettling and soothing at the same time.

_Georgie _showed her to a room in the guest wing on the first floor, near to her own as she put it. It was a gorgeous suite with blue silken wallpaper, a huge queen-sized bed with curtains of the same colour, doors that lead to adjoined walk-in-closets and bathrooms and a view out of the equally grand windows that certainly took her breath away.

"How big _is_ this place?", she gasped, hand over her face to hide her gaping mouth, but Georgie didn't seemed to hear her as she chatted away without stopping to take a breath (Lizzie had enough faith in the girl's ability to stop and get some oxygen in her system if the situation deemed it necessary) and after gaining back her composure, Lizzie was quite grateful for the endless chattering, because asking questions like that only showed that she hadn't done her research properly.

And that was part of being a journalist.

Even though she didn't really feel like one, because with Georgie treating her like a long lost sister, her accommodation that seemed to befit royalty (yeah, she was aware of the irony in that sentence) and the sun shining to the windows, she felt like coming home or at least like being on vacation (because that sounded slightly more reasonable).

So when Georgie told her about her nervousness regarding the interview, Lizzie suggested that they should just forget about it, the aim of this was after all to write a nice portrait of the young princess and they could do all that without some forced questions.

Georgie, delighted at that prospect, jumped up excitedly and suggested at the same time that she should rest a bit, unpack her luggage and get a shower before they would meet later at the music room, because as Georgie put it, she had to "fulfil her daily amount of practice" at the piano (which she hadn't done so far).

The guilty expression on the princess' face amused Lizzie greatly and so she nearly missed the part where Georgie wanted them to go to the stables (this... _estate_... had stables. Stables! And real ones at that, with horses and grooms and all that stuff)... Lizzie Bennet was deathly afraid of horses since the aforementioned incident at the local horse show.

_Yeah, Janie, no brain damage but psychic trauma... _wasn't she a lucky girl?

But before she could tell Georgie so, the little whirlwind was gone and out of the door, leaving behind a highly bewildered Lizzie next to her suitcase and the queen-sized bed.

Guess which one she chose to faint on.

* * *

After successfully putting herself together (that little bit of dignity that was left in her body, had been hard to obtain, because it refused to leave its hiding place under the bed and composure and humour behaved like bratty children, clinging to the bedposts like their lives depended on it) and managing to integrate the thoughts of staying under _his_ roof and spending time with _his_ sister in her system and get them to interact agreeably with the screaming and fretting parts of her person.

The prospect of riding horses didn't really ease the anxiety.

So, controlling her breath (another trick of Mary's), she walked down the stairs following the barely audible sounds of the piano, that led her to a door at the end of the corridor, where she suspected to find Georgie.

She knew the sound, the notes and the chords and the words to that song were on the tip of her tongue, tickling and teasing her and, a hand on the door knob, she paused, while the intensity of the sound increased and the little whisper of "Come on" in her head made her hand turn and open the door.

Light flooded in, together with the music, blinded and distracted her, the room made of white and gold and glass seemed to glow, but her eyes were frozen to the piano, barely irritated by the flowing white curtains, because the person behind it was not Georgiana Darcy.

She held back a sob when she saw him, held back the cry that began to form in her throat and she pressed her hands in front of her mouth as if not to make a sound, while her blood jumped and bounced with adrenaline through her veins, rendering her completely motionless.

He looked horrible and beautiful at the same time and suddenly she couldn't, couldn't think about him in cursive anymore, as if he was a taboo, as if he was the villain and not her, _as if he was to blame for the state I'm in..._

He had closed his eyes, the shadows around them were like scars on his skin, his black hair standing up in all directions, his shirt crinkled and creased and her chest tightened.

He pressed the keys, leaned slightly into the sound and although he wasn't singing, wasn't uttering a word, she felt like he was talking to her and it broke her heart all over again.

She'd called him selfish, not in those words but it was implied, while also calling him an arrogant ass, moments after she admitted to love him. Who does crap like that?, she asked herself and bit her lip.

She'd thought she was safe. She'd thought that their talk about keeping their relationship solely physical had established the impossibility of anything beyond that. But it had always been more than just sex.

Their conversations before and after, the mornings in her apartment (because she'd vehemently refused to come anywhere near his paparazzi-hunted town house), the cooking, the laughing and the fighting... she'd buried it somewhere in her mind, forced herself to forget it, because it didn't, it _couldn't_ matter.

She hadn't done the sensible thing, hadn't tried to stop it, because that meant admitting weakness, meant confessing that he got to her, that he was important to her, that she _cared_ about him.

She'd been the selfish one, arrogant and presumptuous enough to think that she of all mankind was able to keep body and soul apart, selfish enough to only care about her own feelings.

The last tunes left the room and she stared at him, his tall frame, the muscles of his arms, the rough beauty of his face.

Pain is of a peculiar kind. An alarm signal when reduced to nerves and neurotransmitters, a reaction to outer influences or memories when examined objectively. Pain was the same , no matter if inflicted physically or mentally, it always hurt the same way. Pain could be a constant companion, a steady ache, it could concentrate itself on one point, one throbbing hole... it could tear apart a whole body.

Or two at the same time.

When he opened his eyes she thought for one moment the world had forgotten to move. But that was absurd, was way to cliché, was pathetic and presumptuous... as if a pair of icy blue eyes could stop a whole planet.

He just looked at her. Steady, unmoving, his face betrayed no emotion. He just looked at her.

And she looked back.

Pain could contain a variety of emotions. Longing, Guilt, Fear, Anger, Loneliness... _Love_...

You can be so happy that it physically hurts while laughing, you can want someone so much that it threatens to tear you apart.

And you can love someone so fervently that in the face of his hurt you feel like bleeding out.

He stood up, abruptly, his chair squeaked over the floor and in the sudden silence between the high pitched noise and the sound of his feet moving over the hardwood floor, she could hear her own heartbeat.

She felt him before seeing him, the flutter of a second, when all she could hear was his breathing, the glimpse of a moment before she looked up and the lilac eyes met the the icy blue ones.

He raised a hand, slowly, tentatively, his eyes searching for something in her own and there were these words on her tongue but she just couldn't get them out.

She tried to smile, tried to tell him how sorry she was and something in the blue gave way to something softer... caressing...

And she had his name on her lips, when his mouth contorted into something akin to a smile and the appearance of dimples caught her completely off guard.

"Elizabeth..."

His hand on her cheek, tracing over her jawline was a surprise to both of them and she saw his eyes widen at the sudden physical contact.

He pulled his hand back at the same time she reached for it, their hands touched in the air.

"You're real", he murmured, looking from her eyes to her hand holding his and frowned. "I didn't made that up."

"No", she said hoarsely, again searching for better words (why again seemed "Hello" or "How are you" so out of place?).

"No", he repeated and let go of her hand, better said, he shook it off, but it wounded her vanity too much to admit it out loud.

He run a hand over his face, grimaced slightly. "What are you doing here?", he asked distractedly, while stretching the fingers of the hand, that had been touching her skin mere moments ago.

"Interviewing", she answered, relieved to get at least some four syllables out of her mouth. He frowned again, putting his other arm against the door frame, looming over her.

"And who are you interviewing, Miss Bennet?", he asked, his voice dangerously low.

"Me!", exclaimed a bouncing Georgie, who had appeared out of nowhere and seemed to be delighted to find her brother and Lizzie so deep in conversation.

"You?", her brother asked surprised and alarmed and let go of the frame. She breathed in deep, grateful for the space Georgie's interruption gave her.

"Georgiana Darcy!", he exclaimed and she got to see the stony Darcy-face again. "What did I tell you about interfering and meddling?"

"That it's not nice?", the princess suggested innocently, not in the least intimidated.

"Georgie!"

"That I shouldn't do it?" She looked at him with big blue eyes and he groaned.

"Darn right you are" , he mumbled and sighed. "How?", he asked, avoiding Lizzies gaze, that flickered between him and his sister.

The girl clapped her hands joyfully and started bouncing again (Lizzie was more and more inclined to believe Moreland from the Mystery Department and her theory about the royal family members being treated with Kryptonite upon their birth – After all there had to be a reason, why one of them had the ability to transform to stone and the other to behave like a human rubber ball, huh?).

"It's this reaaally amaaaazing thing called "Internet"", she answered gleefully. "You should look into it sometime. It's really great!"

"Don't give me that speech, young Lady", Darcy admonished, but Georgie just chuckled.

"Princess is the more appropriate term", she advised.

"Do you really want to play that game with me, _Pumpkin_?", he asked with a raised eyebrow and Lizzie had to suppress a chuckle.

"Hey, you promised to never call me _that_ again!", Georgie complained embarrassed. "It's not fair to pull that card!"

"I warned you", he simply said. "And it's not like there is no valid reason for this name."

"I was four!", Georgie cried out, her ears turning a prominent shade of red.

"And full of pumpkin soup", he deadpanned.

"Which _you_ poured over me!", she replied agitatedly, while her cheeks also turned crimson.

"Really?", he asked nonchalantly. "Can't remember that one..."

"Oh yeah? I do!"

"You were four!"

"And orange because of you!"

Lizzie had to suppress her laughter because the two of them were just hilarious, standing opponent to each other, with their hands crossed over their chests and sparks in their eyes, they had completely forgotten that she was in the same room as them.

"It's a lovely colour", Darcy replied and something akin to a _smirk_ graced his features.

"It took _weeks_ to wash it of!"

"You have a really biased memory, don't you?" He could look really smug if he wanted to.

"I was four!" _And here we go again..._, Lizzie thought and rolled her eyes inwardly.

She cleared her throat and both Darcys turned around, startled. She smiled a bit and tried to look at the space between them. _Not in his eyes. Not in his eyes. Not in his eyes. _If she repeated that often enough, perhaps it'll work.

"Don't you think, you should get to the heart of the matter before the sun goes down?", she suggested a bit amused by their quarrel (Darcy seemed so _human_, when smirking, it was hard to remember the Kryptonite-thing when he acted like that).

Darcy seemed speechless for a moment, while Georgie had a huge grin on her face. He seemed to have totally forgotten, she was still there. Yeah, talk about vanity...

"Correct", he said and turned to his little sister. "Do we need to talk about privacy again?"

"No", the princess tried to suppress the grin that threatened to consume her face.

"And about personal belongings?"

"No-o." She rolled her eyes and grinned in Lizzies direction, who was a bit confused by the turn that conversation was taking.

"And about obeying to wiser people?" She could tell, he was joking now, even though she had no idea, _how_ she knew that. Perhaps that little twitch of his right eye ticked her off, or it was the slight dimple on one side of his mouth. God she loved those dimples.

"You assume you are the wiser person here, Wills." For a thirteen-year-old she was definitely not afraid of talking back. Or perhaps that was the definition of a common thirteen-year-old...

"I told you to stay away from those letters!", he admonished her sharply. "It's no concern of yours!"

"My brother moping around the house with weather like this outside is no concern of mine?", Georgie asked, her bottom lip thrust forward. "The constant playing of theses Emo-songs on the piano? Refusing to shave and change into some fresh clothes? Yeah, nothing to worry about!", she shook her head in mock sympathy. "You haven't been exactly the epitome of fun lately."

"Georgie..."

"What?", she asked exasperated. "You love her, she loves you! I just don't get the problem you two have!"

"None of your business, Georgiana!"

"Damn well it is!", she replied , before she flashed a smile at Lizzie and jumped again. "We're gonna meet at the stabeles, okay? You gotta kiss and make up and then I'll show my new sister the horse you bought for my birthday, alright?" And off she was.

"Oh and use protection!", she cried from the end of the corridor, a bouncing mass of blonde curls and a whirling white dress.

Lizzie hid her face in her arms in embarrassment. "She didn't just say that, did she?"

"She did", he answered and she heard the smile in his voice.

"She's crazy." Still not daring to meet his face, she covered her eyes with her fingers.

"I agree." He was close, she could sense that.

"She's your sister." So much about stating the obvious...

"I know."

"She set us up." She peeked through her fingers.

"I'm aware."

"I decided to dye my hair blue."

"I – you what?", he asked confused and she laughed, her eyes sparkling behind her fingers and she let them drop to her side.

"Just wanted to make sure, you're actually thinking", she grinned and had no idea where her sudden mirth came from.

"Can anyone ever stop doing that?", he retorted. "I thought that was impossible."

"I meant active participation in the conversation, Darcy." She shook her head and damned her hand for wanting to touch him.

"I was distracted."

"Can't imagine why", she said dryly. They were silent for a moment.

"I'm sorry", she then said and refused to meet his eyes. "I'm sorry for coming here in the first place, I didn't want to intrude. My boss forced me to come for an interview, I thought you knew."

"I didn't." He was back to two word sentences again.

"I can see that", she said with a small smile, that turned bitter at the ends. "I'll get my stuff. Tell Georgie, I'm sorry... I'll... I'll be gone as soon as I can get a taxi.. and..."

"Elizabeth...", he said darkly.

"And I have to go through that security check! Again! Argh, Darcy, they are a pain in the-"

"Neck?", he offered. Dimples. Dimples again!

"I was going to say "ass", but then I remembered where I am", she said dryly and forced herself to smile.

"Be my guest", he said. She snorted. "I've got to go, invent an interview, try to save my job, the usual stuff, you know.."

"Elizabeth..." He came closer. What was he thinking pronouncing her name like that? She looked around the room, trying to find an appropriate distraction.

"Is that a real Picasso?", she asked incredulously and motioned to the picture over the piano.

"No, that's a Monet."

"Really, only a Monet?", she mimicked his aunt's way of talking. "I never pecked you for one to settle on second best."

"It's a Monet", he said and arched an eyebrow.

"And not a Picasso", she agitatedly shook her head. "If I would own this place, there would definitely be a Picasso over the mantelpiece."

"You would really remove the Rembrandt from its rightful place?"

"Rembrandt, pfft! Good ol' Rembrandt can go and live in the attic, no one will miss him and he is definitely inferior to Picasso". She straightened up. "Nobody is better than Picasso."

"You have no idea what your talking about, have you?"

"Not a clue."

"So you're planning on redecorating my house nonetheless?" That smug grin on his face irked her.

"I-", she began and then: "Shit! Shit, I didn't mean – I … I got to go!"

"Elizabeth..." He was still coming closer. Wasn't he somewhat invading her personal space? Could she sue him for that? Oh Fudge, he was the King, she wouldn't even make it to his lawyer to begin with...

"Stop doing that", she muttered, stubbornly averting his eyes.

"What?", he asked, now close enough for her to smell his aftershave.

"Distracting me", she mumbled, focusing her gaze on the crook of his neck. Why the hell did there had to be these awfully cute freckles?

She heard the smile his voice. "And pray tell..." He placed his hands against the wall on both sides of her head. "...how exactly do I do that?"

"You're too close", she said, her eyelids fluttering, it was hard to keep them fixated on his neck.

"One could argue about that", he replied and slowly leaned in.

She saw it coming, had felt it building inside herself and in the atmosphere between them. Darcy and her... they were like two trains on one rail track, rushing with high velocity directly against each other – the train wreck was inevitable.

She opened her eyes the moment his face was inches away from hers.

"We shouldn't be doing this", she whispered.

"No we shouldn't." He didn't move. "But you are here."

"I am here.", she replied.

And that seemed to settle everything.

It wasn't the desperate crashing-against-walls-and-kitchen-counters from before. This was tentative, craving, a slow touch of lips, noses and foreheads pressed against each other. A heart fluttering like a butterfly, skin becoming static, electricity that hummed in ears and heads. Her hand involuntarily moved up and touched his face and a soft moan escaped him, while his hands clasped around her waist and she felt the hole in her chest tightening.

"We have to stop", she breathed in this space of heat and skin and energy between their bodies.

"No", he managed to get out and pressed her against the door frame, rendered her speechless with his mouth on hers.

"I have to go", she protested weakly and pushed her fist against his chest.

"No, you don't", he whispered against her lips. "Stay."

"Can't..."

"Stay."

"You have a thing for commands, don't you?", she asked and managed to get some space between them.

"And you definitely talk too much", her retorted and pulled her closer to him. "Stop it."

"We... Darcy, we have to talk."

He paused. "I know."

"I'm sorry", she said, her hands now flat on the cotton of his button-down shirt.

"I know."

"I said a lot of things, I didn't mean..."

"I know."  
"How?" She furrowed her brow. He smiled sadly.

"I know you."

"You don't."

"Let's see... Yellow, Spaghetti, _Much Ado About Nothing_, walking barefoot, stealing cornflakes out of cereal boxes... Lucky Charms, your sister, sunshine, _Scrubs_... oh and me!" He smiled impishly.

" What kind of list is that?"

"The one about the things you like."

"I don't like you." His smile didn't waver.

"Do you really want to start that discussion again?" His fingers traced her jawline, while the other one was pressed against her lower back, a silent reminder of the last time she'd disagreed with him on that point.

"Are you talking to me like you just did with your sister?", she asked incredulously and cocked her head slightly.

"I wouldn't do stuff like that with my sister", he retorted and the hand on her back travelled a little lower.

"Because that would be strange", she managed to get out, slightly breathless.

"Definitely", he murmured.

"But you're still listed after _Scrubs_", she reminded him with a cheeky grin.

"I can live with that."

"Really?", she asked. "_Scrubs_ is pretty awesome."

"It's a TV-series, I think I can compete with fictional characters."

"You're so awfully self-confident it's nauseating", she complained while her right hand travelled up his neck.

"Something you like about me?" His eyes lit up.

"Oh definitely", she replied sarcastically. "So tell me, your Majesty, how do you plan on competing with_ that TV-series,_ as you like to call it?"

"Quite easily", he said and leaned in closer, the proximity made her feel dizzy. "Stay."

"That's a word", she retorted.

"It's a request."

"Or otherwise known as an order."

"A plea."

"An instruction."

"Can't you just say yes?", he asked and the grip around her waist became a bit tighter.

"Yes to what exactly?" She arched one brow.

"To stay here, as our guest, to do the interview with Georgiana and to just consider.." His voice trailed off a bit towards the end as if he wasn't sure how to explain it.

"What?" Her voice sounded harsher, than she intended to.

"Us."

She paused. "I called you an ass."

"I know." His voice was neutral.

"I said, you were the last one on earth I would ever marry", she continued, wondering if he was the one to have suffered some damage to his precious head. Or the alien abduction, that was still a possibility.

"I remember."

"I called you selfish", she reminded him, surprised by his calm reaction.

"I'm aware."

"And an ass."

"You repeat yourself."

"I hurt you." That was the central point. Didn't he get that?

"Yourself too." He looked at her intently.

"God, Darcy, is omniscience part of the job description?", she cried out exasperated.

He grinned. "Didn't you know?"

"I knew about your arrogance", she retorted.

"You repeat yourself, darling", he replied smoothly.

"And no "darling" or "honey", okay? I vehemently object to that." She huffed in indignation.

"Any other demands?"

"Yes", she said and pointed at his chest. "This."

"You want me?" Why was he so smug about that?

"No, dumbass!", she hit him lightly on the shoulder and his mouth broke into the widest smile she had ever seen him sport. "This has to stop."

"Please, clarify", he requested in his best I'm-not-satisfied-with-common-adjectives-voice, he so loved.

"You, me..." She pointed towards the bit of space left between them. "Us in that proximity."

"So you admit, there's an 'us'".

"It's a common enough pronoun." She shook her head slightly and continued listing. "The snogging,the touching, all of that. I have to keep my mind clear, if I am to consider..."

"Us?"

She made an exasperated noise. "I still have to find out if there's an 'us'"

"So you'll stay here?"

She sighed. "I'll stay."

He smiled an almost dazzling smile and leaned in, captured her lips with his.

"That's not part of the deal", she spat out after breaking free.

"It's a one time favour", he grinned boyishly and let her go. "Next time you'll have to beg me."

"Like that's ever going to happen...", she mumbled and tried to sort herself out, all limbs were attached, her dignity halfway still in place.

Than she stopped dead in her tracks, when a sudden realisation hit her like a ton of bricks "Does that mean I have to go near those horses?!"

A chuckle was the only answer she received.

* * *

She had been right when assuming it was Purgatory.

Not that someone had been torturing her, no not in the physical way (even though Darcys glances at the dinner table, at the picnic Georgie organised for them that afternoon, or constantly whenever they were in the same room, could be interpreted as such), it was more the constant tension between the two of them, that slowly but steadily threatened to drive her mad.

He hadn't touched her since that first day in the piano-room and it took all her will power to keep her own hands towards herself (the urge to touch him was as constant as Georgiana's matchmaking, the blank expressions on the faces of the security guys, who seemed to pop up everywhere and Darcy's apparent nonchalance (except for the aforementioned glances)).

The princess had been devastated when discovering that Lizzie and her brother hadn't used their "one-on-one-time" appropriately to get engaged and create some offspring together (at their meeting later at the stables she had grabbed Lizzie's hand directly while suggesting different potential baby names) and when she hadn't been able to discover neither a pretty stone on her ring finger nor a baby-belly (Lizzie had no idea, where that girl's understanding about procreation stemmed from) she had stormed off with an angry expression on her face and a hissed "Wills", that nearly made Lizzie laugh hysterically.

They talked. In attempted politeness, but sometimes their stubbornness got the better of them and their heated banter let Georgie shake her pretty golden head and made her "fear for our country's future", because they would never get onto the baby-making, if they kept arguing like that.

Little did she knew, Lizzie thought, because if Darcy kept provoking her like that, unrelenting sometimes in opinions, Lizzie knew, he wasn't really holding, all the while teasing her with this sudden appearance of humour in his eyes, that nearly had her come undone, it wouldn't be too soon before she jumped his bones.

And by the look in his eyes, he knew it.

But Pemberley... Pemberley was beautiful with its green hills, that softly flattened until they reached the stony edge of the coast, where the waves crashed relentlessly against the shore.

She hadn't understood the true beauty of this estate, not until Georgiana on one of their morning rides (Lizzie had overcome her fear of horses as long as the beast wasn't moving faster than walking pace) had commented on how secluded from photographers and other crowds they could live here.

"It's easier to be yourself here", Georgie had said. "When no one's watching you. I think Wills feels it too, he's been so careful and strict with himself these past few years, especially with Mom's death and Papa's illness, he had a lot of things to take care of..." Eyes downcast, it was one of these moments, where Lizzie felt how unfair it was for a thirteen-year-old to have lost both her parents so young, but then she lifted her head, her eyes shining and she smiled at her companion. "But now it's all gonna be better", she said. "You are here and you make him happy."

Lizzie thought it was rather sweet that the princess still seemed to believe in fairytales.

But mostly that blonde girl was a matchmaking devil and her total score of times per day she managed to get Darcy and Lizzie together without any third party, was at 45 and yet to be topped because Friday morning (it was a cloudy day, promising rain after the heat of the past week) Georgie announced at breakfast that she wanted to go shopping. Alone, she added as an after thought, when seeing Lizzies face.

"But", Lizzie protested weakly, while Darcy just watched her with an amused expression on his face.

"No buts", the princess cut her off and was gone and jumping up the stairs to her "costume room", where she had stored all her wigs and make-up for a day alone in the city (as alone as you can be with two bodyguards and your own personal driver) and left Lizzie and Darcy alone in the breakfast room.

"Are you afraid of me?", Darcy asked in a decidedly low and at the same time highly amused tone.

"Never", Lizzie managed to get out and swallowed the last bit of toast.

"Could have fooled me", he deadpanned and shook the newspaper in his hand (she had investigated that, but unfortunately the butler wasn't ironing them... too bad, she would have loved to tease him about it).

"There's a certain adjective right now on the tip of my tongue, that for propriety's sake I'm not going to elaborate." She smiled sweetly.

He arched one eyebrow. "More because of the risk of repeating yourself, I assume."

"You assume to much." She saw the small smile tucking on the corner of his mouth and decided that the view out of the windows was the better option right now.

"I'm mostly right."

"And what happens if you're not?" She hadn't wanted to get into yet another argument with him, but interaction with Darcy without physical contact to alleviate the tension, was another train-wreck thing.

He folded the newspaper neatly together, before he leant back in his chair and looked at her with an unreadable expression on his face. "I got you."

She blinked. He hadn't said these three words to her ever since that dreadful day and it was kind of hard to miss the meaning, when he looked at her like that.

"I'm... glad", she replied instinctively and when she saw the slight curve of his lips and the glint in his eyes, she wanted to bang her head against the nicely decorated, massive oak table, playing orchestra with all the porcelain on it.

These thoughts were diverted by an exuberant, yet again bouncing Georgiana, who had hidden all her blonde curls under a wig with sleek red hair, she also wore big Jackie-O-glasses and tight black clothes, completely forgoing the loose sun dresses in pastel shades, she normally wore.

"So am I looking like the spoiled brat of some Wall-Street-banker?" She pirouetted and then stopped with her hands on her hips. "Serena VanLoren, my pleasure." She smiled, then cocked her head slightly. "Or rather not my pleasure, because I think Miss VanLoren isn't particularly interested in what other people think of her."

"Do you do that often?", Lizzie asked surprised.

"Oh, I love playing theatre!", Georgie exclaimed and performed another pirouette.

"You love inventing characters", Darcy replied dryly, but Lizzie could see that he was teasing.

"Oh yeah!", the princess exclaimed. "A character for every situation!" She winked at Lizzie. "There's the exuberant Lila McLaughlin when I want to go out, the serene Christine for operas and classic theatre productions (she doesn't like the comedies though, but there's Lila for that) and plain old Mary for lonely walks and hours in the British Library. See, I got everything covered!"

"Aren't you afraid of becoming schizophrenic?"

"No", Georgie said decidedly. "I know who I am. These characters are just a personification of one of my own attributes." The thirteen-year-old straightened up. "It's easier to exhibit them, when I'm not under the scrutiny of the whole nation, so I invent stories, make up backgrounds..." She shrugged and glanced at Darcy. "It's fun."

"And what's Miss VanLorens story?", Lizzie asked, while her mind was racing.

"She's a spoiled little High-Society brat who thinks she's an adult because she spends a fortune on unnecessary clothes." She cocked her head slightly and looked out of the window. "She's lonely", the princess said then. "Her Daddy doesn't have much time for her."

Lizzie choked and was at loss for what to say. Darcy also regarded his sister with a look of concern on his face, but the girl plastered a smile across her face and stalked of, hips swaying.

"She also got mobile phones and facebook and twitter accounts for each of her characters", Darcy said, an unreadable expression on his face.

"Aren't you afraid?", Lizzie asked fidgeted with the cup of tea in her hand.

"Of schizophrenia?" He shook his head. "No, Georgie is an artist, she likes to use the world as her stage. It gives her the freedom her real live is lacking."

"No, not that." She smiled. "I was talking about the way these black clothes are really _tight_."

He gulped and tried to hide it with his hand. "I don't have a problem with black clothing."

"Yeah?" She cocked her head.

"Absolutely." He had gained his composure back. "I like it when you wear clothing like that."

"Like the ones your sister just sported?" She looked at him questioningly. "Good then, that I only got these really loose, really wide sun dresses with me."

He stood up. "You are aware of the fact that they are sleeveless? And a bit low cut?" The smug grin was back and she had to swallow, hard to keep her tongue and hands under control.

He chuckled and slighlty leaned forward until she felt his breath on her bare skin. "Sure, you're not afraid?", he asked and the slight rasp in his voice sent shivers down her spine.

But he was gone before she could say anything.

* * *

They managed six hours, forty-five minutes and twenty-six seconds before the clouds turned dark and the lightnings and the thunder made them blind and deaf.

They had been sitting in the parlour, curled up on the couch, her bare feet hidden in the cushions, she'd tried to read, but the roaring thunder and the occasional lightning that coloured the room for the fraction of a second in a sharp neon light, distracted her.

His presence at the other end of the room was not really helping.

He sat behind his desk, stacks of paper to both sides of his arms, while he was working through the records some _really_ important people had brought him that morning.

Just the thought made her fidgety.

It was so easy to forget it sometimes. Who he was, what he was doing... Sometimes she thought her brain was forgetting it voluntarily, because thinking about him as just a brother to Georgie, as just some business-guy, _as just some lover, _didn't made her feel so left out.

But he was the king for Fudge's sake. He wasn't just some rich guy living in a palace at the coast. Not just some guy, she had slept with.

She had told him, she would stay, that she would try, that she would _consider it_. She had said, she would stay, instead of these other three words, that seemed to be constantly on the tip of her tongue these days.

But the thing was, she was no princess.

The thought made her restless and she stood up and started pacing. His words this morning, the sudden appearance of some top-ranking politicians in his study, the fact that today was Friday and that tomorrow was Saturday, the end of her visit and that she had to make a decision, _now_, made her feel like she was going to suffocate.

_Breathe in_, she admonished herself and pressed a hand against the cool glass, the rain crackled incessantly against the pane. _Just breathe..._

Lizzie felt his eyes on her, staring, not uttering a word, and it riled her up even more.

She started pacing again, around the room, from the window, to her book, watching him out of the corner of her eye, back to the window, she eyed the door and was again distracted by a loud roll of thunder. She kicked her feet slightly in the air, crossed her arms in front of her chest, walked over to the bookshelves on one side of the room and back when another lightning struck.

In short, she behaved like a wild animal in a cage and it was frustrating.

She knew he was staring, but she ignored him, he had her worked up enough without some direct interaction. Lizzie grabbed her book in an attempt to divert her thoughts and to postpone this one final decision to a later point.

No such luck. Words escaped her, sentences seemed to be turning into long, winding chains of letters and punctuation marks and she was pretty sure she saw a lizard in the gaps between the words, when all of it kind of blurred together.

Frustrated she threw the book on the floor and started pacing again, all the while under the watchful eye of William freaking Darcy.

"Stop staring for fuck's sake!", she finally snapped and turned around angrily, when she caught his eyes in the reflection of the glass pane.

"You are a bit on edge", he replied calmly another report in his hand.

"Oh really!", she cried out and pulled at her hair that ran in wild curls over her shoulders. "Wouldn't have guessed."

"Do you have a problem with the storm?", he asked and arched an eyebrow. "Meteorosensitive?"

"Oh screw you and your four syllable adjectives!" She was again at the window, as if looking for a way out.

"Actually, this particular one contains seven", he deadpanned and watched her tucking at her dress in frustration.

"No one likes know-it-alls, Darcy."

"Hysterics have no better reputation", he replied without batting an eye.

"So you want to know what irritates me?", she cried out and walked over to his desk. He nodded. "Fine! It's you!", she yelled and threw her hands in the air. He furrowed one brow.

"I'm sitting here."

"You're infuriating!", she spat out. "Sitting there behind that family heirloom made of oak and gold , with your precious 1860 fountain pen and folders, which the fucking _president_ just delivered this morning!

"He's fond of golfing."

"He acts like he's your fucking footboy! Tell me, does he wipe your ass if you ask him to?"

"Certainly not." He closed the folder. "He's twice my age."

"Perhaps you fancy older guys", she quipped.

"Don't take that road", he warned. "This is not the only circumstance, that causes your discomfort."

"Discomfort!", she repeated, her hands clutched in the creases of her dress. "Can you imagine my _discomfort_ when I came into the living-room or whatever you superhuman beings call it these days, with dripping wet hair and without shoes to find not just _anyone_ there enjoying a cup of coffee, but the fucking _president_!"

"I told you not to burst into rooms unannounced." He arched an eyebrow.

"Oh, should I use that freaking enunciator that follows you around like a lost puppy? That guy is creepy, you know that, right?"

"He's my assistant." She looked at him. _That guy is a freaking ace at poker._

"Your sidekick." She crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"He's doing the paperwork for me."

"Another royal ass-wiper?"

"Why do you always assume that this is all my employees do?"

"Because they rarely leave your side?" She was pacing again and he followed her movements through the barley lit parlour.

"Are you jealous?"

She didn't answer him, just picked up her book from the floor. "I'll start packing", she announced without looking at him, but when she made her way over to the door, he was there, tall and dark, and blocked her way.

"Let me go", she demanded, eyes fixed on his chest.

"Forget it." His voice was dark, the muscles in his arms tensed.

"Stop it, Darcy." She tried to get past him, but he held up his hands and the sudden contact after _days _of tension lit her body up like fire.

"Don't you dare!", he spat out and released his hold on her. She tumbled backwards a bit. "And don't call me that!"

"What? By your name?" She rubbed the place on her arm, where he had touched her. "Should I call you "Your Majesty?" For _propriety's_ sake?"

"You know damn well that calling me by my last name won't help you get clear with the situation!"

"What situation? I'm leaving tomorrow."

"No, you won't."

"I won't?!" Her voice shrilled a little and the oversized room suddenly seemed too small. "So you think, you can tell me what to do now?"

His eyes became dark and when he spoke his voice was dangerously calm.

"I walked away one time, when you told me you were too scared and threw words around you like daggers. I won't let you get away so easily again."

She gulped. "It's not your decision."

"It affects me as much as it does you!" She sensed the edge of desperation, the barely concealed urge to scream and shout and hate her for the things, she'd done.

"Why?", she asked. "Because it's your heart that breaks?" She shook her head agitatedly. "This is not a comprise, Will." _Will, she'd called him Will._ "It's a black and white decision. Staying or leaving. Giving up my life or living it alone. The only thing that concerns you, is whether or not you have to give up the left side of your bed!"

"Why the left side?" She saw a spark of humour in his eyes despite the strained expression on his face.

"Because I refuse to sleep anywhere else."

"So you're claiming the left side?"

"Not the point!", she suddenly spat out and turned around, moved back to the middle of the room.

"Then what is the point?" He furrowed a brow.

"That I feel like the fucking sacrificial lamb!" She threw her hands in the air. "You're not giving up anything, while I-"

"I give up the left side."

"Is this really the right moment to discover a sense of humour?", she asked exasperated.

"I'm just telling you: You. Repeat. Yourself."

"Because we are not going anywhere!" She was acutely aware of her bare feet on the wooden floor, the loose dress, that hung from her shoulders and she wondered why they always got into arguments when she was barely and he fully dressed. She pointed at herself.

"Doesn't that look vaguely familiar?"

"Would be quite odd if it didn't, wouldn't it?" He crossed his arms in front of his chest and she eyed the space between him and the door, wondering whether or not she could make an escape. Probably not, because he caught her glance and quickly shut the door before crossing the distance between them in two long strides.

"We always end up this way", she said and looked up from his chest to his eyes. A lightning struck and the harsh light made the edges more visible, moments before the thunder rolled.

"Which way?" His voice sent shivers down her spine.

"You, me..." She bit her lip. "Us against that wall."

"The bookshelves could be a bit uncomfortable." His voice was half in the shadow, now without the lightning and only the lamp on his desk as illumination.

"We'd manage", she whispered. "Or we could move to that wall."

"There's a painting at that wall..." His voice was low. "I could prove to be jealous."

"Another Monet?", she smiled slightly. "I told you, he was up to no good."

"Actually it's Great-great-uncle Hugo on his war horse."A small smile tucked on his lips. "I don't want his on eyes on you. Or the ones of his horse for that matter."

"What, that dray-horse?" The smile grew. "Now, I understand the sudden jealousy. You're just no competition in comparison to it."

He chuckled and she felt the sudden danger of losing herself in the sound.

"We could move to the door", she suggested, not breaking eye-contact.

"And what would I do to you against that door?" He slowly leaned in and she could feel the ghost of his fingers trailing down her waistline.

"What do you want to do with me?", she asked, her eyes glinting mischievously, she was deliberately not touching him.

"Hmm, let's see... I could pick you up-" The shadowy fingers on her hips became flesh and she let out a small gasp when he picked her up and pressed her against the door. "Pin you there..."

"And what now?", she asked, smiling a bit smugly, while she crossed her ankles behind his back, the hemline of her skirt rode up.

His hand traced over the pale skin of her inner thigh, close to dangerous territory. Another lightning struck and the rumbling of the thunder nearly cut off his next words. "Ask you to stay?"

She tensed at that and would have let go of him, if he hadn't kept her in place with one hand on her thigh and one around her waist.

"Really?", Lizzie asked. "That's the reason for this game? Get Lizzie so worked up that she can't think straight?!"

"It's a good way to block the door too", he replied dryly, his face in the shadows.

"Probably not your best idea if you don't want me to escape", she mused. "I'm pretty close to that door."

"I'm not going to let you go any time soon." His thump was now drawing patterns on her thigh.

"What are you waiting for?", she asked him softly and a bit defensively. "Me to get too tired or too worked up to deny myself any longer? Because that wouldn't be fair."

"What wouldn't be fair?", he asked sounding a bit on edge. "Demanding an answer about whether or not you are going to rip out my heart _again_?"

"I can't just make that decision on a whim, it's life altering for fuck's sake, I would give up-"

"-your whole life", he finished and rolled his eyes. "I know that and I'm just standing here laying out my whole heart and waiting for you to trample all over it again!"

"That's not-"

"And it's okay, Elizabeth. I'm willing to take it, I'm here, you can hurt me as much as you want, I don't care! You can scream and shout, throw a temper tantrum or run away as long as you come back. I. Don't. Care!"

He breathed heavily. She opened her mouth to say something, but he cut her off.

"And don't you dare tell me it's not fair, that you have to choose. Look at Georgie, look at _me_ and then tell me again, that it's not fair to actually _have_ a choice."

He didn't let her go and she was at loss for what to say.

"I'm... sorry", she whispered, her hands like feathers moving up and down his arms. "It's just... you're just so..."

"So what?"

She forced herself to look him in the eye. "You're so close", she murmured. "You're so darn close and it's freaking me out."

"Do you want me to let you go?" He sounded slightly defeated at that, but she shook her head, while the childish, the immature part of her wanted nothing more than to just run away and hide under her blanket at home.

But she had been childish, petty even, immature beyond words and she needed to leave that behind.

"No", she said and rested her hands on the collar of his dress shirt. "It doesn't matter how close you are physically, because you are always _there _and I can't seem to get away. You are _there_ and you are _close_ and it's driving me crazy." She took in a deep breath. "It's just so fucking hard to make a decision, because you are _there_ and I'm not sure if I'm doing all this just because of you, because I can't take hurting you again, or because I really want it." She tried to catch her breath again, acutely aware of the fingers, that were still pressed against her thigh. "And I want to say "Yes", I want it so badly, but then I don't know if I'm doing it for all the right reasons and that's not a decision you just _make_ and it's all creeping me out."

"Elizabeth..." Here they were again, pressed against a door, she rambling, while he called her name.

"It's just... I need time, Will." She clenched her fists in his shirt. "A week is just not enough."

"Elizabeth..."

"I'm scared, Will", she admitted and pressed her forehead against his. "I'm scared _shitless_."

"I know", he said, like he had done all these days. "I know you're scared..." She bit her lip. "But, Elizabeth... it's not about actually making the decision", he paused, "it's about you already having done so."

"Done what?", she asked.

"I know you, Elizabeth, you wouldn't have come here, if you hadn't made up your mind beforehand." She looked at him dumbfounded, his eyes so close to hers, his scent invaded her mind."You knew you would stay the moment you passed that gate. You knew it that day in the piano-room. And you knew it today when you looked out of that window", he paused. "So don't think about this as being right or wrong, or good or bad, just think about what you want and not if it's morally the right the decision."

"Am I that easy to read?" The joke was out, before she had a chance to think about it, her mind was still in a shock like coma.

"I know you", he said and it sounded like he meant three completely different words.

She gulped. "So you're basically telling me, that this decision, I thought was life altering and about which I beat myself up the past few weeks, was already made? By me? And you couldn't tell me?!"

"I thought you should find it out for yourself." He smiled a bit and the hand on her thigh moved up and towards her face, before he softly caressed her cheek.

"But I didn't." Her fingers traced down the column of his neck. "How did you know?"

"When you stood in the doorway", he whispered softly. "I knew that if you had decided against me, against us, like you did the first time, that you would just have sent a letter, saying you're sorry and that you just couldn't take it. You wouldn't have come, Elizabeth."

"But my boss practically forced me! I didn't do it voluntarily, you know", she protested and poked his chest. "Sorry to deflate your ego."

"You've never let your mother dictate how you live your life", he replied, his fingers tracing the line from her eyebrows down her jawline to her lips. "How embarrassing these photos might be, it wouldn't have stopped you from refusing to do the interview, if you didn't want to see me."

"You got a pretty high opinion of yourself for the record", she interjected, smiling a bit.

"Your parents did a lot of things wrong", he said quietly. "But you never let that scare you away." He smiled. "Except for maybe..."

"Please don't go there." She pressed a finger against his mouth. "My parents did a shitty way of raising us, but I don't want to blame them for the mistakes I do, because that would mean that they have some kind of influence on me..." She caressed his cheek and he leaned into the touch, "And they don't."

"So your fear of commitment..."

"...is because, I never tried before." She laughed slightly. "I'm kind of new to this."

"As am I." He cupped her face and stared intently into her eyes.

"Then let's explore together." Her eyes seemed to glow in the dark.

"So you'll stay?" He slowly leaned in, gave her only seconds to answer before he captured her lips with his.

"I'll stay."

* * *

_Epilogue:_

"How did you know, I loved you?"

At hearing her question he turned to her, a grave expression on his face, but she saw the mirth in his eyes.

"Don't you think it's a bit late to ask questions like that?" She twisted the ring on her left hand, far more sparkly and valuable than she was actually comfortable with, but she had gotten used to making compromises in the past year.

"No and I'm curious, so indulge me", she replied with a smile. He shifted and threw a look at the people around them.

"You told me", he said then and her eyes widened in surprise.

"I did not!", she protested, but he just nodded. "When?", she pressed out weakly. He smiled a bit smugly.

"You remember the photos your boss blackmailed you with?" She laughed at that. Ed Gardiner had looked like she had smashed him in the face when she told him what was about to happen and while he valued her decision as a friend, as her ex-boss he just couldn't let it slide to ask for some exclusive interviews, which she denied him repeatedly.

"Did Ed show you those?", she asked curiously. He shook his head and looked at her like she just insulted his moral integrity (which she probably did in his estimation).

"You know you were pretty-" Again he looked around them and she suppressed the urge to roll her eyes at that.

"Drunk?", she offered not caring if someone overheard them. He looked a bit disapprovingly at her but her impatient mien got him talking again."

"Do you know, that you called me?"

"I remember waking up next to you and you were grinning like a freaking dinosaur."

"Dinosaurs are capable of grinning?"

"No, I made that up, you just looked incredibly smug."

"I had a really illuminating night."

"Oh really?" She leaned in closer, propriety be damned. "Then tell me, what was so funny?"

"I found you on the bathroom floor." He trailed a hand down her cheek.

"Oh please tell me that I at least wore my underwear!", she exclaimed, embarrassed and shocked.

"Oh you wore your underwear", he assured her.

"And nothing else?" Her voice shrilled a bit at the thought about walking up and down in front of him in nothing drunk and in nothing but her underwear.

He just grinned at that.

"And then I told you, I loved you?"

"You were quite effusive, darling, I recall at least 5 declarations before you crashed."

"I crashed?"

"That's the thing that strikes you? Not the declarations?"

"Poor baby", she patted his arm. "I can imagine that this must have been kind of important for you, but I just can't remember anything."

"Really?", he smiled, a bit devilishly. "Because for me it was the first time, I realised I loved you."

She was silent for a moment, before a huge smile broke free across her face. "I knew it , buddy."

"Knew what?"

"That I was the first to realize, subconsciously of course, but I still beat you to it."

"Why do you always turn everything into a competition?", he groaned before the mischievous smile reappeared on his face.

"But I remember you telling me, that "sober Lizzie" was repressing "drunk Lizzies" feelings." He grinned, because now she was the one to groan in embarrassment. "She was kind of put out about it and told me to call your bluff."

"I said that?" She made a face at that.

He pulled her closer. "It was kind of cute."

"Really?"

"You only wore your underwear, of course it was not cute, it was sexy."

"Me, drunk, in my underwear?" She raised her eyebrow at this while at the same time suppressing a giggle. "My, my, there seem to be a lot of things I don't know about you, Mister."

"I think it's a bit late to reconsider."

"Hmm, thought so..."

They were interrupted when the creepy assistant, that reminded her of Billy Collins, suddenly appeared in front of them and cleared his throat with a disdainful look on his face (she was convinced that he was deeply in love with Will and hated her for snatching him away).

"We are ready, Your Majesty", Creepy-Assistant announced (he also never talked directly to her, which she found kind of amusing).

She giggled slightly, when he stepped back, and she bent down to collect her skirts.

"You know I hate you for doing this to me, don't you?"

"I didn't force you in that dress and neither did Georgie."

She straightened up. "Oh you know damn well, that nobody can refuse your little devil of a sister when she looks at you with those puppy eyes and practically _begs_ you to wear that _"totally awesome" _designer creation, that is just _"meant for you"_!" She made some rustling noises with the many layers of fabric. "I mean they are skirts _under_ skirts, I'm like a walking cream-puff with a freaking diadem as icing on top of it!"

"I know you love that dress", he deadpanned and intertwined her free arms with his – Creepy-Assistant coughed slightly.

She looked at him, and her lilac coloured eyes seemed to sparkle. "Am I that easy to read?"

"I know you", he simply said. Her eyes lit up before she rolled them slightly. "I'm also wearing a veil."

"That was your mother's doing", he reminded her. "I didn't know you had an aversion to veils."

"It's always in the way", she complained and pushed the thin white material out of her face. "And it's itching, Mister I-know-the-lexicon-by-heart."

He just chuckled at that, while the footmen opened the wide French door and the couple stepped out onto the balcony, facing the enthusiastic crowd, that gathered in front of the palace.

Celebrating their new King and Queen.

* * *

**A/N: So yeah.. I know the end is a bit cheesy... so what do you think? Sunshine and rainbows;)?  
**

**I'm also deeply sorry if I offended anyone with Lizzies remarks about Russia, or horses, or Monet and Rembrandt, she doesn't necessarily represent any opinons I might harbour (my best friend has russian origins, I personally just have some issues with Putin there, so don't get me talking on that one, I'm pretty sure, it's a great country, but sending Lizzie to Russia wouldn't have solved anything;) as in the book she's very opinonated and uses it as kind of a defense mechanism (also a topic you don't wanna here me rambling on, so I just stop here;)**

**Anyway, I hope you like it and please, please: Reviews are appreciated (strongly so;) **

**Love ya all! **


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